Category Archives: Inspirational

Even though we can always find much to celebrate heading into the Christmas season, it’s still really easy to get caught up in the craziness and stress out instead isn’t it?

For instance, in preparation for the baby’s arrival we are getting new carpet in the bedrooms and replacing the tile in the hall bath…

all happening next week.

Which means our dining room and garage are holding all the items from the baby room and bathroom so we (or rather, my hubby, family, and friends) can paint the nursery and prime/texture/paint the bathroom this weekend.

I was so proud that I was totally keeping my cool about all the bins and boxes stored around the house.

In fact, our living room still looked normal and we even had the tree decorated!

And then half the lights when out on the tree.

Thinking this was something I could handle fixing on my own, I set about replacing the burned out bulbs.

Pretty much as soon as I could walk, I started making up song and dance routines, ♬ grabbing my glue stick “microphone”, 🎤and roping my younger brother into running pyrotechnics (throwing leaves in the background 🍁) for my outdoor “shows.”

So my parents dutifully enrolled me in dance and piano lessons…

And I got kicked out of my dance class.

I am seriously uncoordinated and despite my best efforts it was becoming painfully obvious that I couldn’t keep up.

(That is still a bit of a sore spot for me.)

Piano lessons were a bit more successful, but there was always a girl my age who was better than me.

“Sally” (name changed to protect the innocent) always seemed to learn music faster and play it prettier.

I could never “win” because she was better.

Even though I enjoyed music, it just felt like if I couldn’t be the best it was wrong to even try. 🎹

I stopped and started lessons many times as I struggled with this feeling of inadequacy. <SIGH>

The constant comparison was exhausting.

IS exhausting.

Because (as much as I hate to admit it) I’m still doing this today.

Someone’s business is more successful, they have a better website, more likes on Facebook….

I should try this new tip, do that fancy trick, buy this new software, etc.

This was the wake up call I needed to snap out of it, step away, and talk to God:

Don’t set people up as experts over your life, letting them tell you what to do.

Save that authority for God; let him tell you what to do.

If you’re content to simply be yourself, your life will count for plenty.

~ excerpted from Matthew 23, The Message

There will always be a metric to measure success and find ourselves not good enough.

He had a favorite part in the song and he had finally gotten to it. So he paused to announce it proudly.

That’s how I feel in my life right now. Like the last few years of struggle to become parents were a long, hard passage in a song. And now, here comes the pretty part! The light after that long dark tunnel.

We wouldn’t appreciate the “pretty” parts if it wasn’t for the difficult parts. So I’m thankful for EVERY part of this journey.

And that’s why I chose “It is Well” for the Facebook live this morning.

One of the many things I realized is that I was holding so tightly to the way I thought this had to happen. Lost in all the appointments, calendars, and alarms I started to think I had control over the outcome.

No surprise, it wasn’t happening as scheduled. I got a really strong reminder to

Release meant that we took a break this summer to travel and recover emotionally from all of the ups and downs we had been through.

When we returned, we felt we were supposed to try again, and decided to tell no one.

Releasing the need to share and instead lean on each other and our faith.

The week leading up to our embryo transfer was also VBS at our church. Every day of that week I sung these simple yet powerful words with the children…

All this week I’ve found myself saying, “I have no idea where this is going but I’m committed to creating it.” (In reference to an album I’m recording for people dealing with infertility.)

Which is especially funny given a recent driving mistake I made.

After leaving an awesome conference in Columbia, SC I planned to meet up with my husband and start our anniversary road trip.

My husband flew into Charleston.

I drove to pick him up…..in Charlotte.

So clearly not knowing where I’m going is something that crops up in many areas of my life. And yet it doesn’t stop me from driving around….

In my defense I was exhausted, the first 5 letters of both cities are the same, and they are both an hour and a half away from Columbia.

Thankfully my husband saw the humor in it (eventually) and we had an excellent vacation once I found him.

Trust me, I’m an excellent driver…..I just need to be pointed in the right direction.

Sometimes multiple times.

And maybe that’s where project is teaching me. All I need to do is create, and allow the idea to point me in the right direction.

Speaking of creating and letting the project lead the way, I’d like to include some more singers as a part of this process. Would you (or someone you know) be interested in an online singing experiment?

While visiting a friend this week, it was time for her daughter to take a nap.

The child began to scream and cry because she wasn’t ready to take a nap, claimed she didn’t need one, and pleaded to stay up longer.

I was holding back a giggle because the very thing she was doing (throwing a fit) was a huge sign that she was indeed exhausted and needed a nap!

This got me started thinking about my reactions to all the setbacks, detours, and dead ends I’ve faced in life. How many times have I pitched a fit because things didn’t go my way, thereby proving I wasn’t ready for that thing in the first place?

2003: Tired of waiting, I made a deal with God in an effort to secure my “happily ever after.”

It went a little something like this:

“Ok God, I’ve been through some pretty awful stuff. It’s helped me grow up a lot and you’ve graciously provided me with family and friends who love and accept me unconditionally. Thank you for getting me through. Now that we’ve got the hard stuff taken care of, I’d like the rest of my life to be smooth sailing. Got it?”

It seemed like things were on track too…I married a wonderful man, we have a beautiful house, I make music for a living…

You heard it, didn’t you? The inevitable but that’s coming…

We always knew we wanted to have children and started trying back in 2011. We thought our dog Penny would be lonely once we were distracted by a baby so we adopted another dog, Shadow, to be a playmate when the baby came.

2012: No baby yet, so I applied to grad school, because I always heard you get pregnant when it’s most inconvenient to have a baby. What could be crazier than holding down two jobs and getting a graduate degree? This was definitely going to work…

2014: We now have two dogs,

I earned a masters in music, and….

still waiting.

We were diagnosed with infertility. The diagnosis meant that no matter how much money we were willing to spend or treatments we were willing to try there was no way we could make a baby together.

And yet we still wanted to be parents.

2016: We discovered the miracle of embryo adoption.

It’s a unique process that began because couples who have undergone fertility treatments often end up with more embryos than they can use. These embryos remain frozen in storage and are often called “snowflake babies”.

Our adoption agency matched us with a family at the end of last year and the embryos were transported to our clinic a few months ago. We get to experience the miracle of adoption AND the miracle of pregnancy…what could be better?

We are so close to becoming parents!

Close…but not yet.

I have been composing this post for months and waiting to hit publish until I had a happy ending to share.

And now I’m realizing that’s not what life is about.

Even though I would LOVE to fast forward to the happy ending!

God isn’t just here to handle the hard stuff or hand us the happy stuff.